To Serve and Protect
by ZWTFmate
Summary: AU.  There are boundaries a cop and a victim have, and things can get dangerous once those lines are blurred... Detective!Zombie/Witness!Toni


**Heeeeyyyy... So this is an idea that sincerely will NOT leave me alone. I've been working on it off-and-on for a few months, and I finally finished the first chapter! I'm kinda nervous because I usually don't write multi-chapter AUs, but there's a first for everything!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Hanna is Not a Boy's name. That's prolly best too.**

~O~

It was a cold night. Autumn had just chilled into winter a few weeks ago and the first frost of the season had creeped over the dirty concrete sidewalks. Icy snow crunched under his feet as he trudged quietly between the shine and shadows of streetlights and skyscraper windows; The city's personnel stars. Face completely covered with a low-brimmed cap and scarf, he was barely noticeable to the others shuffling by him, too absorbed in their own issues and life. Quietly, he continued on his way until he finally stopped and glanced to his right. There a bright florescent sign told him he was next to a cheap drugstore of sorts. He stared for a moment, then gave a quick nod before opening the door.

A bell jingled his entrance, and he paused as the door closed behind him. In the store was two teenage boys ogling over a Sports Illustrated, a woman with far too much make-up on nervously browsing through a shelf with pregnancy tests lining it, and an elderly man talking lottery tickets to the college drop-out behind the counter. A fairly normal scene in a fairly normal store.

The man scanned the room again before heading to the counter quickly. He bumped into the old man, who stumbled backwards and nearly fell into a rack of candy.

"Oi, what's the big idea?" The wheezing voice rasped angrily by his ear.

He turned fairly casually and asked, "You talking to me?" 

"Yeah, I'm talking to you!" The senior charged up him, taking one of his beefy fingers and jabbing it at his chest. "You got no respect for elders, punk? I outta teach you a lesson in manners!"

He glanced down at the finger on his chest and sighed. Then he pulled out the gun.

There was a deafening BANG and a spray of blood as the bullet tore through the wrinkled body. The face gaped before it landed with a _thud _onto the ground. He watched it all quite calmly, the barrel of the gun slightly smoking in front of him. There was a shriek and he saw the woman run up to the old man. The boys had dropped the magazine and were now racing for the door. He held up the gun and shot at the ceiling.

"Nobody move!" Everyone froze in their places and he turned to the cashier. "All the money. NOW."

The man's zitty face paled as he reached into the cash register and began stacking small amounts of bills on the counter. He pocketed the money, keeping the gun at target. "Anything else?"

The cashier shook his blond head fast, eyes wide and focused on the gun. He nodded and turned to the door. His booted feet stopped in their tracks when he saw a car screech up and onto the sidewalk, cop-lights flashing on it's roof. He wheeled around and spotted the woman with a cell phone in her trembling hand.

"Shit." He muttered and fired. The bullet hit her in the shoulder, and she fell next to the old man. He took no notice and turned back to the man behind the counter. "There a back door?"

When there was no response (too busy staring in horror at the woman sobbing on the floor), He aimed the gun and missed the boy by mere inches. He jumped and finally responded by pointing behind him and just barely audibly stammered, "O-o-over there..."

He pushed past the quivering clerk and kicked opened the door. It led into an alley; dank, dark, and covered in trash. One side was fenced off, but not high enough that he couldn't climb over it. On the other end he could see lights streak red and blue. He walked briskly to the fence and began to work his way up, one hand still holding the gun. He was so absorbed in his struggle up the chain-link that he didn't hear the footsteps dash behind him.

Suddenly he felt a pair of hands grab him roughly by the shoulders and fling him off the fence. He crashed into a nearby dumpster, causing the gun to fly out of his hand. The blow caused him to lose his vision for a moment, so his attacker was blurry and disoriented. He threw a punch that collided into it's chest, hopefully giving him enough time to find his gun. But before the weapon was in his reach he was on the ground, face in a puddle of muck and the weight of a foot keeping him down. He was pushed around just when he was beginning to get his sight back. He looked up to find himself face-to-face with a tall, sober-looking man who held a police badge in one hand and a well-aimed fire arm in the other.

Me.

"You have the right to remain silent..."

~O~

I leaned against the hood and watched as they put the perp- some scum-sucker who was low on cash and had no better plan than to hold up drugstores- in the back of the car. The back-up that was called had arrived along with an ambulance. Witnesses were being talked to as EMTs patched up the girl and carted the old man onto a gurney and loaded him into the van. The back-doors closed and it started up, my eyes following down the street until it turned the corner and out of sight.

I stood and headed over to one of the cops who was finishing up with one of the teens.

"We done here?" I asked as I came closer and the boy went back over to his friend.

"Yeh, I'd say so." He muttered, glancing in my direction. He turned to face me and looked me over for a moment, eyes squinting. "...Gotta say I was surprised to see _you _here. Bit of a petty crime for a detective, wouldn't you think?" 

I kept a straight face as I looked him over right back. A portly man about 20 years my senior, with a thick graying mustache and watery eyes.

I shrugged one shoulder. "We were in the neighborhood."

He made a "hmm" noise, skepticism obvious across his face. He wasn't the first to give me that look.

My mouth twitched slightly and I turned, striding swiftly over to my car. Through the windshield I could see my partner looking over the whole scene. I slipped in without a word and turned on the engine.

"Anything interesting?" He asked as we pulled out onto the street.

"If you had gotten out, you would've known." I replied, watching him out of the corner of my eye. He sat in a sort of hunch, tousled blonde head bowed and his naturally sad-looking face stared at the coffee cup he held. His badge sat open on the dashboard so I could read his ID; a photo of a slightly younger him with his name typed under it: "Lee Falun. Detective."

He looked up at me after a moment and gave a small smile I was sure he wasn't really feeling. "And steal any glory from you catching the culprit? Wouldn't dream of it."

"I don't care about glory." My mouth twitched slightly again. "I might've needed help."

"With a drugstore robbery?" The small smile grew slightly. "We both know that's BS."

I frowned but didn't respond, mostly because he was right. I've handled a lot worse than that before, and had gotten quite a reputation for it. Not that that's important.

"One of the officer's copped attitude." I muttered, turning a corner. Lee shrugged.

"Well, it was sort of strange, two homicide detectives at something like that." He gave a small chuckle. "Especially if one of those detectives is the Famous Steve Gallahad."

I gave an irritated sigh. That reputation mentioned before was, well, let's say was played up by the news. As great as it might sound, being the most well-known cop in the city, it had more downsides than anything else. Like almost everyone on the Force thinking you're nothing but a punk who wants to be the Hero instead of actually wanting to help people. I was getting tired of receiving dirty looks from other cops, to say the least. And to say the worse, I was getting to the point of being at the defense if someone so much as glanced at me weird.

I drove up to the station and parked the car. As we got out, I tried a change of subject. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Gonna go visit Veser." Lee's face fell as he looked to the ground. "Just got out of the hospital again."

I raised a brow. "Another fight at school?"

He nodded and smiled weakly. "You know, for a Captain's son he seems to get into trouble with the law a lot..."

I frowned. I personally had never met the kid, but with Lee's stories and the picture sitting on Hatch's desk, I had a pretty good idea about him. And I think we both had a feeling what was really going on. But Lee played it off, knowing full well not to mess around with your boss' personal business, especially when the boss is your best friend.

He must have felt me looking at him, cause he cleared his throat and began walking past me. "So... How about you? Anything planned tonight?"

I shrugged and followed him into the precinct. "Not really. Most likely just babysitting."

Lee chuckled a little and looked back at me. An actual, genuine smile graced his morose face. It's so a rare a sight that I smiled back, an even rarer sight. It lasted for just a second, then we were back to our normal selves as we stepped through the station door.

~O~

I stepped into my apartment after a long night of filling out paperwork and looking over case files. The other side of hardened crime-fighting life-style. My jacket was halfway off and "I'm home" Halfway out of my mouth when I noticed the red stuff on the ground.

I stooped down, examining it. It was some sort of thick liquid. I ran my finger through it and rubbed it between my thumb. "hmm..." I murmured, eyes lifted to look down the hall. There was a trail of the red solution leading into the living room. I stood and walked forward, careful not to step in the little puddles.

When I reached the living room, my eyebrow raised. The furniture had been turned over and paper and books once on shelves and tables littered the ground. Splashes of red were painted over the walls and ceiling fan, which was spinning in a lull. The maroon path went over the toppled couch past the drenched coffee table and ended in the far right corner where a foot was protruding out of a pile of receipts that were at one point on the desk. The foot was attached to a sprawled body, skinny limbs in odd angles and face sheet white. There was smattering of the stuff in his already red hair that dripped down to his rolled back eyes and gaping mouth. In the middle of his chest, a knife was imbedded to it's hilt.

I stood there for a moment, looking from the floor to the walls to the body. I strode over to it and looked down.

"Nice try, Hanna."

The eyes rolled forward, electric blue looking up at bored brown. "Nothing?"

I shook my head.

"Not even a little?"

"Nope."

"Damn." He pouted and sat up, causing the papers and fake knife to fall in his lap. "What gave me away?"

"The blood splatters on the wall, mostly." I replied. "And the fact that this is the third time this week you tried to fake your death."

He shuffled a few papers around, producing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses after a moment. He slipped them on and looked around. "I thought they were a nice touch."

I shrugged, holding out a hand. He accepted it and I helped him to his feet. "Kind of hard to lose that much blood from one stab wound."

He looked glum for a moment, then gave a bright grin. "Heh, should've known better than to try and fool a top-notch detective." I wanted to tell him that someone who took fifth-grade science could have come to the same conclusion, but I held my tongue.

The grin stayed on his face as he pranced over to the couch and straightened it. He fell gracelessly onto the crooked cushions, putting a hand behind his head and acting like he had just got home from a hard day instead of making a mess in my living room. "So when's dinner?" He asked.

I gave him a look. "It's ten o'clock at night."

"So?"

"Why haven't you eaten yet?"

"Cause you weren't here to cook and we ran out of pop-tarts."

My look turned deadpan as I turned into the kitchen. I was relieved to find it in some sort of shape; Cupboards flung open and a cereal box tipped over on the counter, but no mock gore anywhere. I went to the fridge and peered in.

"Where's the spaghetti sauce?"

The silence that followed caused me to sigh. "Really, Hanna?"

"I ran out of the fake-blood I had saved from Halloween."

I rolled my eyes again and grabbed two beers. I had to go grocery shopping anyways. Just another thing to put on the endless list.

"I think you'll just have to starve tonight." I walked to the tomato-covered couch and sat down, handing one of the cans to Hanna. He took it happily and popped it open, slurping half of it down. "How was your day?"

I shrugged and sipped my own slowly. " 'salright. Yours?"

"The same. This guy came into the store and started talking weird, so I thought he was, like, possessed or something, and I was gonna do an exorcism I learned online, but then it turned out he just had turrets." He finished his can in another gulp and turned to me. "You know what we should do?"

"Never watch Harold and Maude again?"

"Go to a club and pick up chicks like we used to."

I raised a brow and my mouth curved upward a little. "Hanna, that was when I was still in the Academy. I can't get you a fake badge anymore."

"WHAT." He stared at me in a mixture of shock and horror, like I never told him that before. Which I did. He jutted his lower lip out. "Bu-bu-but girls dig guys in uniform!"

I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. "Sorry." I sighed and got up. "Actually, I'm feeling a little out of it. I'm gonna just go to bed."

Hanna crinkled his nose. "Y'know Steve, sometimes I think you're secretly an Old man- You gonna finish that?" His face changed into a hopeful smile so fast I barely realized it. He was good at that.

I handed the can to him and walked to my room. "Get this place cleaned up tonight."

"Yeah, yeah." He muttered before chugging down the barely touched liquor. Alcoholic.

I didn't bother to turn on the lights as I shut my door and took off my shirt. I shuffled to my quasi-made bed and fell face-forward into the pillow. I stayed like this for a moment, simply listening to my nightstand clock tick and Hanna's muffled grunts as he fixed the furniture in the other room. I shifted my face to look at the numbers looking back at me. 10:09.

Other things on the small table included a lamp, my badge and gun, my cell phone and a stack of small paper squares. I picked up one of the squares and rolled onto my back.

My eyes began to droop while my hands went through the motions it did almost every night, or when I'm upset or stressed or angry. I thought of the way that police officer looked at me, Lee's sad smile, Hanna and the mess in the other room... I looked at my finished work. The small gray paper crane looked back from my palm. I sighed slightly and tossed it onto the ground. It fluttered for moment, as if actually flying, then dropped to the floor. I pulled the blankets up and closed my eyes.

~O~

I must have been sleeping pretty hard because I could just barely here the shrill ring next to my ear. I blinked the blur out of my eyes as I figured out what it was- my phone ringing. I stared at it then glanced at the clock.

1:47.

I groaned and pressed speak.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Boss wants you at the station."

Lee's voice and words made my brows furrow against my pillow. "What for?"

"Didn't say. Just to come down to the interrogation room."

"I'm on my way." He made a "hmmmne" noise and hung up.

I sat up, looking at the phone in my hand. That wasn't too surprising, but something still felt off about the whole thing.

Still, order was an order. I grabbed my badge and headed out.

~O~

** Whoo, boy. **

** So, a few things; 1. … Is SO HARD to write! And I think that when he was alive, he had a little more of an emotional scale, but I still wanted to keep him... Zombie-ishk.**

** Another is I based a lot of the mood on shows like Law and Order SVU and stuff, and I know that that doesn't accurately portray work on the Force, but that's what makes them fun, isn't it?**

** Anyways, R&R. Love it, Hate it, disgusted, confused, whatever. Let me know. **

**P.S. Toni appears in the next chapter. Just letting you know.**


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